“Proposition One” is a photo series in which analog cameras, record players, and other obsolete gadgets are depicted in ghostly X-ray-style images. Spanish photographer Max de Esteban created the images not with an X-ray, but by disassembling the devices, painting them white, and taking many photographs as he reassembled the devices piece by piece. The final image is a photographic composite of many layers of the device.

The series of images have an x-ray, mortuary quality; as forensic testimonies of a past existence; vestiges of their inner structure can be clearly identified while others fade or have disappeared as in decomposing organic bodies. By eliminating the objects’ individual peculiarities, each photograph becomes a generic symbol of decay and death. While sophisticated and state-of-the-art not long ago, these tools evoke today a sense of fragility, archaism and trauma.

“Proposition One” is on exhibition at the Klompching Gallery in Brooklyn through December 9.